Eternal
by MaxStupidity
Summary: Sasuke is in a coma. NaruSasu/SasuNaru - shounen ai based on: sasunaruxnarusasu DOT tumblr DOT com /post/21039136832


"Sasuke," Naruto whispered to no one in particular, and then got up and mounted the brunet. Naruto ran his fingers down the other's bandages almost sacredly - as if he was almost afraid to touch.  
It was a dry day. The air stood still and Naruto could feel the tension in it, heavy as ever. He ran his fingers through the raven's hair, and even though his comrade couldn't have possibly felt it in his coma, Naruto liked to think it soothed him.

**●•●**

It was not the first night Sakura had found Naruto twisted around Sasuke, holding desperately and begging someone who wouldn't, _couldn't_, hear him.  
It was not the first time she had to pull at his hand, tears streaming down her cheeks, her whispers getting louder gradually until she was yelling, "Naruto," "stop it," "he's never going to wake up."

**●•●**

"I know..  
"I know you can't hear me. Well, they all say you can't. All of them, Sasuke. They've all lost hope in you.  
"Wake up, damn it."  
Naruto jabbed at his tears with his sleeves, but he wouldn't look away from Sasuke's pale form - paler than it had ever been before. He wouldn't let himself tear away from the steady ringing of his heartbeat recorder - steady and slow and incompetent for an entire year.

**●•●**

Sometimes, it was just Naruto and Sasuke.  
Sometimes, Naruto would just wind around Sasuke and press his head against Sasuke's chest, burying himself into the other boy and letting his tears fall fast and free, and there would be no one to hug him back. There would be no one to yell at him for being an idiot, for not letting Sasuke go, for not moving on. There would no one to lecture him for being weak. There would be no one to call him a moron, to make fun of him, or to look and smile at him the way Sasuke did.  
Sometimes, Naruto would stray too deep into the darkness, and he'd realize the burden of loss is too strong for him to carry alone.

**●•●**

"I love you.  
"I know I never told you that. I know you think I hate you.  
"But I don't. Not really. Not at all, actually.  
"I love you."  
Naruto held at Sasuke's hand so hard that his own hurt. Sasuke's features didn't falter - not a smirk, not a wince, not a cold glare, nothing - and it hurt more than rejection.  
"I'm sorry," he whispered, and then climbed out of Sasuke's bed, running, feet hitting against the ground hard, not thinking to stop - not for a moment - running as fast as he could, as far away as his feet would take him from that empty shell of a body without a soul, not thinking, not seeing, folding under his emotions.

**●•●**

"It's okay, it's okay, it's okay.."  
Naruto shook in Tsunade's arms, loud sobs shaking through him, and the Hokage looked down at the blond - once too merry to shed a tear, too happy and determined and loving to let his troubles waver him, now a broken heap of tears in her arms. Naruto had always been like a son to her, and she let her walls fall for him - lend him her strength and everything she could to try and piece him back together, and hope against hope that she could fix him even when she fully knew no one ever could.  
"I thought," he gulped, "I would bring him back, I would fix it," - another sob - "we would be happy."  
Tsunade hugged him harder, her heart breaking at his words, her hands buried in his hair, but she knew there was nothing more she could do to help him.  
His voice came in broken gasps, "where did it all go wrong?" and she held him even closer, coaxing, whispering "hush," into his hair.  
A soft click voiced and Tsunade looked up, her eyes glimmering with tears fighting to break out, connecting with Kakashi's, and for a second there was comfort in the mutual pain they shared. Kakashi had lost Sasuke and along with him Naruto, in ways beyond repair, and Tsunade had lost the light of her life for the third time.

**●•●**

"I miss you," Naruto said, his tears long dried out and yet not completely gone, traces of them stains on his whiskered cheeks. He reached out for Sasuke's hand and their fingers interlaced - but it was different from before. His touch was soft and Sasuke's skin felt like silk against his own, so delicate, and Naruto hated seeing him this way - vulnerable and innocent and too beautiful for words. "You're like an angel, you know," and Naruto didn't know he was going to say the words until he did, and then they saddened him even more because they were true. Sasuke was very much like an angel, complex and full of contradictions - yet perfect. His skin was so white it glowed, and his hair looked even darker in comparison. He was frail and skinny from sickness, weak, yet his features were graceful, his complexion gentle. He looked innocent, as a child, as if he'd left his sins behind and was finally at peace. He frowned at the thought, not ready to let go, but didn't tighten his grasp. Instead, he pulled himself up again, silently as if not to wake the other boy - without realizing how _stupid_ that was - and perched himself above Sasuke, and then, leaning down, gingerly placed a whispering kiss to Sasuke's lips. Then he fell back against Sasuke's chest and closed his eyes, letting the world fall behind him and sleep lull him into a far away land. He didn't realize the slight increase in pressure against his hands, as if someone was holding him back, and if he did he cast it away as a dream.

**●•●**

Naruto woke up to a voice he'd thought he'd never hear again, to soft calls of "dobe," "wake up," "moron." His eyes widened like saucers and he'd jumped, stared at Sasuke, goose bumps on his arms, and wondered whether he'd died and gone to heaven.  
"Lock the door," Sasuke said, and his voice was commanding enough that Naruto did it, and then turned and continued staring.  
Sasuke laughed.  
"I never thought I'd hear that sound again," Naruto answered, dumbfounded, and he continued to stare at Sasuke, unmoving.  
And then Sasuke coughed, wheezing heavily, blood dripping from his lips, and Naruto didn't have time to wonder whether it was real or not. He was at Sasuke's side in a flash, holding Sasuke too hard again, bringing a finger to his lips and catching the blood as it fell.  
"I don't have much time," Sasuke said, turning to look at Naruto with kind eyes - and Naruto thought he'd never really seen them shine this way, never seen him smile that smile - never seen anything like it.  
"Sit with me," Sasuke whispered, and Naruto did, holding his hand again, panic in his eyes, ready to cry out, but Sasuke saw ahead of it and stopped him, "I love you."  
Naruto gulped and it was too much to take in all at once, too much -  
"Promise me." Sasuke started, "promise me you won't let this hold you back. You'll join me one day, but promise me you'll be ready when you do."  
Naruto was crying then, trying to say Sasuke's name, but Sasuke just held him, his eyes so insistent that Naruto knew he shouldn't speak.  
"Don't let go of your dreams." Sasuke said, squeezing Naruto's hand and smiling at him again - that one smile that told Naruto everything he needed to know - that Sasuke was finally happy. "Promise," he said again, and this time there was a tone of urgency in his voice, a hint of that emotion that had always been behind every little thing he did. Naruto nodded, fiercely repeating "I promise, I promise," leaning down to press his face into the crook of Sasuke neck, to breathe him in for the final time.

"I love you," Sasuke chocked out, and it was his final words, his fingers digging into Naruto's skin, his voice cracking with it, gasping it out with all his might, "_I love you."  
_And then Sasuke was fading, and his skin was going cold, and Naruto could feel the pain of loss so sharp he didn't know whether to scream or cry or not do anything at all. It stretched on until the world seemed to go black, to lose it's shades one by one, and Naruto wondered whether he was going blind - because the pain was still there - eating at his heart, clenching at his very being.

**●•●**

"Naruto," a voice called from far away, and then Naruto was being shaken slightly, and he woke to see his friends surrounding him.  
He didn't catch up at first, was confused to find that he'd been crying in his sleep, and then Sakura had flung herself at him, crying quietly, and Tsunade has squeezed his hands and looked at him with so much sorrow in her eyes that he'd wondered how she was even standing through it.  
He'd looked away, oblivious, and seen Ino outside the hospital room in the hallway, crying into Shikamaru's side, and something told him Shikamaru was trying pointlessly to hold back tears as well.  
He'd looked again, and Kakashi was somewhere beside him, but he was tired and older than he'd ever looked, no tears in his eyes and pain not as evident in his features, but weariness and the sort of grief that grows with old age painted in his every movement - in the way his hands shook as he signed some hospital form, in the way he nodded his head at what the doctor was saying - as if he wasn't really there at all.  
Then Naruto had looked down and realized the bed he was in was empty.

**●•●**

Everyone dealt with pain differently. Tsunade did it by raging, fighting, losing herself in drink. Kakashi did it by disappearing, erasing his presence from the world for a day before coming back to hold everyone else together, working himself to the bone, looking for any form of distraction.  
Sakura would fall into Kakashi's arms, and they'd bind together, and she would cry into him and he would sigh and not dare try to stop her.  
They would work well together. Naruto watched them sometimes - they would be fine without him.

Naruto deals with sorrow in an entirely different way.  
He does so by visiting Sasuke's grave often.  
By staying up late at night, alone, sometimes in the snow, sitting by Sasuke's tombstone and staring ahead, his eyes distant and filled with emptiness.  
He would not move for ages.

Bypassers would sometimes find Naruto shivering in the rain, and he would not realize that he was cold until a warm hand would press against his back, and Sai would sit beside him and try to offer his comfort.  
"Konoha needs you," Sai would say, and Naruto would look at him for a moment, unspeaking, but then he'd nod, and finally, for the first time in seasons, his tears would fall.

That night, Naruto would sleep, and wake up to memories of black onyx eyes, of gentle touches, of the smile on Sasuke's corpse. His heart would throb at odd moments of the day, and sometimes he would silently break - but other times, he would be strong.  
Other times, he would visit Sasuke's grave and laugh.  
He would fight with Sasuke in his head, and sneer and challenge him - "I know you're watching me. I'll make my dreams come true, even better than you think I can."  
Every once in a while, Naruto's love would hurt - "I miss you," he'd say, "do you know that? Do you know how much I miss you?" - kneeling by Sasuke's grave, placing roses against the hard stone.

Naruto would not forget. He would love in every form, and try to move on without much conviction - not wanting to, and knowing he never would be able to. Instead of trying to forget, he would try to remember, and every time, Sasuke's voice would ring in his ears and he'd hear the other calling out to him. He'd hear his words, "I love you," as if they were carved into his heart, as if he was made to know them - and he wondered whether that was Sasuke's gift to him, to love him so strongly that even the distance of life and the after world could not erase them.

Upon reflection, nothing much had changed with Sasuke's death.  
He still occupied Naruto's every thought.  
Naruto still yearned for the touch of him, the feel of him, his musk and his scent and his beautiful smile, and the way his eyes shone at night.  
Naruto yearned for the big and the small - for the way Sasuke changed his life and the way Sasuke's voice could give him shivers.

Naruto continued to live until he'd died - until he'd manifested all he could in life, and it was a long long time before he finally joined Sasuke, but he'd spent the time looking upwards, whispering to the clouds, "Sasuke," and the pang in his heart enough proof that Sasuke could hear him.  
Then, finally, Naruto would be buried by Sasuke's side, and the two would be reunited for a time longer than foretold, and Naruto's flames would dance, orange against Sasuke's blue, and Konoha would stop and stare and whisper, "_this is the true power of undying love."_


End file.
